Proud to be an Ally this Pride Month

I have to say that I’m very excited that it is Pride Month. I am particularly excited to be living in the Bay Area this year and getting to go to the San Francisco Pride celebrations at the end of the month is something I have wanted to do for a long time. I’m also excited because I know the Grand Marshall of the San Francisco Pride Parade.

I am ally and I am deeply proud to be an ally. Over the years I have been asked many times why I am so deeply drawn to the fight for inclusion and equal rights for the LGBTQ community. I have a hard time answering that question because I cannot pinpoint a “became” an ally. It simply feels like part of who I am and has been that way as long as I can remember.

While I cannot answer how I became an ally I can, however, tell you the reasons it means so much for me to be an ally every day. Over the years my life has been deeply affected by my LGBTQ friends and I have learned more than I can possible say from them. They have taught me about courage as they have been themselves even in the face of the world asking them not to be. They have shown me what it means to love and love deeply and honestly. They have taught me about faith, staying in love with God even when the church brokenly says we don’t want you. They have shown me acceptance and they honor and affirm who I am. I am grateful for the lessons the LGBTQ community has taught me even at the same time mourning the brokenness of the rest of the world that gave the opportunity for these lessons to be taught.

So this pride month I proudly declare that I am an ally and would not have it any other way.

Mary

A poem inspired my worship at New Spirit Community Church on 5/29/2011.

She stares into my soul. Her eyes that of divinity. Caring, compassionate, loving. She knows me, this Mary, not for who I pretend to be, but for who I am. In the moment, Mother God with us.

Reflection on the End of the World That Was Not

May 21 came and went and we are all still here (no surprise here) and I find myself wanting to be snarky. I find myself wanting to say I told you so, and to make jokes at the expense of those who thought the Judgment was upon us. The truth is, though, if I fall to these urges I miss an opportunity to learn from what we have just seen, I miss to opportunity to practice compassion for those who must be reeling from this experience.

Before I begin my thoughts on the subject I want to give credit to one of the most intelligent and thoughtful people I know Jay Johnson for helping me to recontextualize this event in his blog post "Apocalypse Now or Later."

Now to my thoughts; if we just become snarky about this event I believe we miss the point. The fact that so many people were willing to see and wish for the end of the world revels something about the brokenness experienced in our world today. When people see the only hope as the end, something has failed them, it is not a new phenomenon but it is one to pay attention to. What if we who saw this prediction of the end of the world for what it was had been better able to express a sense of hope to those who had been unable to find it? What if I had been able to speak of hope instead of simply making fun of the prediction as I did? I find myself feeling I missed an opportunity to engage brokenness and instead engaged in brokenness.

I also find myself with anger at Harold Camping himself. I think that some of that anger is rightful. This man has done a great deal of damage to thousands of people, and has in the name of Christianity once again hurt the world rather than done anything to better it. So I’m not saying my anger is not justified but if I stay only at anger I miss a lesson here. We who are religious leaders need to see again just how much sway we hold in people lives. There is a lesson for us here to once again examine our beliefs and make sure that we are not through what we do and say leading people to a place that is destructive for them. While we may not predicting the end of the world like Harold Camping, we need to take the time to ask ourselves if our theologies are really furthering the betterment of human kind or are we holding onto dogmas that divide, encourage hate, rob people of hope, or leave them feeling that the only hope is in the end. It would be ashamed to let this pass without reflection.

Lastly, we are left with a great opportunity for compassion. There are a great number of people in a great need for that compassion. Yes, it is true that they themselves chose to quit their jobs uproot their lives to follow Camping. This does not make these people any less worthy of compassion. In the end what one of us can look back at our lives and say we have not at one time or another made some kind of massively bad decision? In the end these people are people and they are people who are hurting. We have an opportunity to provide hope and to heal some of the brokenness in the world. Are we going to fight the brokenness of this world or again add to it, in the end it is our choice.

Open Letter to Sojourners

What follows is an open letter I wrote to Sojourners in regard to them rejecting an ad from Believe Out Loud a United Methodist group working for full inclusion in the church.

Dear Sojourners,

As a long time reader of Sojourners, I have gained a lot from your insightful take on issues of faith. I am deeply troubled however by your rejection of the ad from Believe Out Loud. You have been a consistent voice for the oppressed and marginalized and this decision is simply out of character for your organization. I understand that not everyone in your organization is of the same mind on the issue but you do not foster honest dialogue on the issue by by excluding the voice if faithful Christians who are attempting to promote said honest dialogue as Believe Out Loud is. I fear that this decision has less to do with the mission of your organization and more to do with dollars and cents, fear of losing readers/ sponsors. I pray that you will reconsider the issue and live up to your call to be the prophetic voice I have known you to be.

Chris Hockley

Blessed is the One Who Comes in the Name of the Lord

Jesus...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Moses, Mohammed, The Buddha...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Dorothy Day, Holy Mary, Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks...
Blessed is she who comes in the name of the Lord!

Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X, Oscar Romero, Harvey Milk...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

The Dalia Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Black Elk, Eboo Patel, Rumi...
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

The millions unknown who devote their lives for Justice...
Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord!

Letter to My Body

To my body,

I know it has been a long while since we have really talked, truthfully far too long. I don't even know when and how we lost touch, it was so long ago. Admittedly you have kept trying to reestablish contact and I just outright ignored your pleas. I let others tell me that you were not good enough, that there was essentially something wrong with you. That was never the truth. But because I believed that lie I abused you. I can't say how sorry I am for the damage I have done. I really should never has lived as if you didn't matter. As you know I have been trying to take better care of you and when I saw you in passing in the mirror the other day I was happy to see you looking well. Truth is though I've still been treating you like nothing but an empty shell. You are much more than that. You are God's own creation, I'm sorry that I forgot that. I'm sorry and ashamed of what i have done to you. I worry that some of the damage can never be undone. I truly wish I could say I love you.. but I'm truthfully not there yet. But there are more days I can honestly say I like you and that is something at least. I promise to treat you right... or at least try to ( I know myself and my bad habits). I've missed you thanks for not totally abandoning me like I have deserved.

With hopes of better days to come.
Chris

What Religion Is and Is Not

Over the last month or so I have watched and read a lot of different people define religion. The thing that struck me has been that most of these definitions of religion don’t work for me. I don’t intend to create a definitive definition of religion here but I want to talk about how I define what religion is and is not to me personally.

First, for me religion is not about an afterlife. Whether there is or is not an afterlife and what that looks like is a constant debate but I believe that that is missing the point. Religion, Christianity in my case, is at its best when it is focused on the here and now. I believe deeply in the wisdom of an old Jewish story in which a Rabbi is asked what he would do if he was told that the world was going to end that very day. The Rabbi responded that he would plant a tree and then see what all the fuss was about. My faith is not about some better life I will get later but about improving the life I live this day and the lives of those around me. In other words I think there is wisdom in living life as if there is no afterlife whether you believe in one or not.

Religion is not a set of rules to me. Certainly my faith informs how I live but not like a checklist of things I must do and must not do. If we turn religion into a five step process to salvation, it has lost its life giving abilities. Also if religion is only about rules I must follow to be “saved” it becomes a very selfish pursuit. It is this that leads to dangerous platitudes like “love the sinner, hate the sin” quite frankly when I have seen people try to practice this idea it has always devolved into hating the sinner. We must focus on community and solving the real problems of this world not blindly arguing dogmas.

I completely reject religious exclusivism. I believe whole heartedly that there are many ways to God, Goddess, the Creator (whatever name you choose to use). I believe that Jesus reveals one way and so I follow that way. But as I journey up the metaphorical mountain to the source I more and more often hear the sounds and prayers of those on other paths and they brighten my journey. I believe we are going the same direction we are just taking different paths. I have often, on my walk, been taught how to be a better Christian by Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Atheists and Agnostics. Without the influence of these others I would have been missing essential parts of my own faith. It is incredibly important to me to walk the journey with these people and see them as spiritual equals.

Religion should be about embracing ones true/whole self and the true/whole selves of those around us. Religion is about wholeness, it is for this reason it is so important for me to be a part of the fight for full inclusion my LGBT sisters and brothers. Also why I think it is so important to try to actively dismantle systems of racism within and outside of us. If people are treated as subhuman or asked to assimilate to be parts of our communities not only are they being harmed by religion but we are harming religion by not embracing the wholeness that they have to offer to the whole. Religion should help people live into their full selves, the beautiful selves that God, Goddess, the Creator has made them to be. Religion should bring people together too often it does not.

To me the heart of religion is connection, connection with the divine, connection with my fellow journeyers and connection with the world around us. This is what I view my spiritual life and my practices as cultivating. By engaging my spiritual practices I hope to feel more connected and gain a sense of compassion and a resolution for social justice that spurs me to action. Spiritual practice should lead to a life lived out of that practice.

Ultimately, there is a lot of religion out there and there is much I reject. There are many constructions of “God” that simply don’t work for me and I am not shy about rejecting them in my life and asking what the implications of believing in such a god would have. There are days where religious systems and institutions are so frustrating that it is tempting to reject them all together, however I instead choose to embrace the life giving possibilities I have experience in the divine. I choose to walk a path that defines religion as connections, inclusion, community and love. This is how I define religion and how it informs my life. It is not the only answer but it is mine.